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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Men We Love

Funny thing happened yesterday while I was out getting the mail. The clouds I had seen in the dusk sky were suddenly billowing and turning a funny shade of orange. Turns out, they weren't clouds at all, but the beginnings of a rather large structure fire. I am used to things burning here in California, but I have never seen a building go up in flames.It is a humbling and awesome thing to witness a fire of this size. The fire started in an old train station turned warehouse/processing facility for the lemon crop that used to be abundant in this area.At first I thought that the construction site at the end of my street was on fire, then it looked like it was the houses directly behind them. The fire was actually 3 blocks over, but was so large it appeared to be much closer. I heard they could even see it from Camarillo, which is about 15 miles away!We walked over to find out what was burning, both out of curiosity and to assess our own danger level and as we came within a block of the blaze, the flames were so hot that they warmed the very chilly air and made our faces hot. The flames themselves must have been several hundred feet high!We watched as the firetrucks rolled up; first one, then two more, then many until the entire neighborhood was alit in red and blue flashing lights and the eerie orange glow from the fire. It is impressive to watch the firemen do their job. They do not rush, they work with a sense of urgency and purpose that is comforting in an otherwise caotic situation. We are lucky to have these guys!

4 comments:

Very Nice photos. Thank you for saying such nice things about the firefighters. I work for the VCFD in the training section. I would like to get copies of the photos if possible. Please contact me at matthew.garrett@ventura.org